PS 3545 


.048 


F3 


1903 




Copy 


1 




Class ^BS^2_&i^ 

Book .Qjn Tl_ 

ghtN°__Li03_ 

COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



FANCIES 



FANCIES 



HENRY A. WISE WOOD 



I 



NEW YORK 
W. J. RITCHIE 

1903 



Copyright, 1903, by Vie^ky A. Wi s e Wo o d 

Entered at Stationers Hall 
London 






T^e Heintzemajm Press Boston 



FANCIES 



A TRAMP 

IA^ the ^ring of ipoo, while riding through an 
outlying environ of New York, I saw by the 
roadside a tramp. Scantily clad, in rags and 
bootless — the very type of our familiar outcast 
— with furtive glances he was pacing a strip of 
ground, forwards and - backwards, backwards 
and forwards, slowly, as if in search of some- 
thing. 

As I approached he straightened up, thrust a 
hand that held something I could not see into his 
ragged coat and nervously shuffled on. Evidently 
I had catight him at some ill thing, and he was 
uneasy about it. 

On reaching him I confronted as rough an 
individual as I had ever seen — the marks of 
poverty, sloth and crime were indelibly stamped 
on the man ; and when I came to a stop the hidden 
hand went deeper into a recess of his ragged 
clothes, while the eyes that peered at me from 
their frame of tangled hair told a sorrier tale of 
defeat than any tragedy I had ever read. ' ' What 
have you there ? '* Stealthily the hand sought 
still deeper hiding, and the eyes shifted sidewise 

[7] 



as if he were meditating an attempt to escape. 
*'Out with it: let me see." Then slowly, with 
evidences of misgiving and embarrassment, from 
the unpleasant mystery of his garments he drezv 
forth some crumpled violets — the first violets I 
had seen that Spring. 



[8] 



AWAKENING 

I DWELT within a city of the rich, 
And strove to share its affluence and life : 
The fruits I plucked were bitterness and strife. 

1 moved me to a hamlet of the wise, 
And felt how good is morning after night; 
For there I found contentment and delight. 



[9] 



ENOUGH 

GIVE me a day in the Mountains; 
Give me a day in the Sun; 
Give me the sweep of the clear blue Sky - 
Then is life begun. 

Give me a deep green Valley; 

Give me a day in June; 
Give me the early Blossoms, 

And the Robin's tune. 

Give me the few I care for; 

Tell me their hearts are true; 
Then you have given me all that there is 

And it will do. 



[10] 



LEAVES 

THE leaves of the trees clap their tiny hands 
in the wind. — Hear them ! 
They greet the breeze with the acclamation of 

myriads of little beings who rejoice. 
No two are alike — yet they differ not. 
They come in the spring out of the ground, but 

in the ground there are no leaves; 
Nor are there leaves on the trees before the 

spring. 
Whence, then, do they come ? 



[II] 



WHITHER? 

A LITTLE while I tarry ere I go : 
Whither, O friend, do the rushing Waters 

flow; 
And whither does the Present make its way; 
Through what fair land, through what enchanted 

day, 
By what successes and from what fair height 
Will future wanderings bear me to the night? 
Speak: Are there calms beyond these cataracts 
That toss me now? And are there pleasant 

trads 
Of fragrant land whose waters lie at rest 
And soothe the weary on their placid breast ? 
Or is it Pain towards which these wild hours 

tend 
Along whose course my stream of life shall wend. 
Till frowning Circumstance aside shall fling 
A shattered remnant, once a human thing? 



[12] 



THE JOYS OF A SUMMER 
MORNING 

THE smell of the morning that lurks in 
the hay, 
The swish of the scythe, 
And the roundelay 

Of the meadow-lark as he wings away — 
Are the joys of a summer morning. 

The daisy's bloom on the meadow's breast^ 
The wandering bee, 
And his ceaseless quest 
Of the tempting sweets in the clover's crest — 
Are the joys of a summer morning. 

The lowing kine on a distant hill, 
The rollicking fall 
Of the near-by rill. 

And the lazy drone of the ancient mill — 
Are the joys of a summer morning. 

The feathery clouds in a faultless sky, 
The new-risen sun 
With its kindly eye, 

And the woodland breezes floating by — 
Are the joys of a summer morning. 
[13] 



LIFE AND DEATH 

LIFE is a cistern 
Holding crystal drops; 
Tis full at birth, 

And each drop is a day. 

Death is a chasm 

Thirsting for the drops, 
Which one by one 

Leak out and steal away. 

'Tis Thought that colors 

All these dripping spheres — 
At birth pure white, 

Tho' changing hue each day. 

Some flash with brilliant 
Luster on the night — 

The rest, in darkness, 

Steal upon their way. 



[14] 



THE CLOUD CHILD 

FLOWING in rivulets, rips and rills 
Out of the mountains, threading the hills, 
Cheering the valleys, twirhng their mills — 
Rain that has risen will fall again. 

On to the Sea; on to the Sea! 

Rushes the Cloud Child merrily. 

Mad with his play he scampers away; 

Tarry him not, he cannot stay, 

But leaps to the back of the Ocean's spray. 

And is off to his far Sea nursery. 

Then the calm Sun lifts him from the main, 
And he rushes back as the summer rain. 



[IS] 



THE FORGE 

"/^ OME to my forge, " said the Welder of Lives ; 

^^-^ " It is hidden in yonder wood, 
Where stands The Tree in eternal green; 
There the Future is linked 'mid sparkling scene 
To the Chain of the Past with the Present between ; 
And the fashioning — Final Good. 

*' Rest in the shadow of yonder elm, 

Where the winds of the present ply, 
And watch the rush of the Welder's flame 
As it swirls and swoons, and its lavings tame 
The moods of Fate, whilst the gems of fame 
From the forge of my smithy fly. 

"Now it is wreathed in a ruddy plait, 

And now is a serpent's tongue; 
And now as a banner of flaunting red 
On the wing of the wind it is overhead, 
And now as a cerement encircles the dead, 

For the Hour of Change is rung. 

** What does it nurse in its writhing arms, 

That you shudder and tremble so ? 
Is it warping a life, or fashioning death, 

[i6] 



Or tempering Fate with its bitter breath, 
Or is there a crime that it nourisheth 
At the breast of its seething glow ? 

''Whither the sparks as they scatter and snap — 

Whither the circles that rise 
Like laurels of Fame to be lost in the air, 
Whose gems of ambition, esteemed and rare. 
But glow for a moment, and then in despair 

Ascend to be lost in the skies? 

** Covet no gift at the Welder's hand 
Save the joy that you know his plan — 

How the embers that live from the silent past 

Are gathered and heaped, in the thought-wind's 
blast, 

And the substance of Future is got and cast 
To the flames to be wrought for man." 

What are the murmurs that sound overhead 
As we draw from the circle of light ? 

Whose are the faces that peer from the dark ? 

Why are their features so livid and stark ? 

Why do they press and entreat that we hark ? 
Are they ghouls, or the Spirits of Night ? 
[17] 



*' Those are the spirits destroyed at the forge — 
The waste that the Welder draws: 

He wields his sledge with a pitiless hand, 

To fashion the whole as his fancy planned; 

But the weak and superfluous cannot stand 
'Neath the swage of his ponderous laws." 

And is there no hope for the dross of the Forge — 

For the many who flake and fall — 
Who come to the hand of the Welder young 
And mix with the rest to be hammered and 

wrung, 
And chance to be cast where the cinders are 
flung? 
" For these there is none at all.'* 

And what of the particles fashioned to fit, 

Who seem to be wrought in the plan ; 
Are they of superior strudural worth 
That they should be chosen to harvest the Earth, 
Or is it the marriage of chances at birth ? — 
'" Success is the measure of Man." 

Does nothing return from the toss of the die 

That is lost to the almost-great ? 
Must they and their purpose go into the past — 

[i8] 



Vain ashes of nothingness spread on the blast — 
And serve as a blank in the lot that was cast ? 
" Yea, verily ; such is their fate." 



What governs this Presence, the Welder of 
Lives, 
That wields such a merciless hand 
To fashion the substance that comes to its blaze, 
And make of it animate braces and stays 
For girding a structure, the Future of Days ?' 



^ The children of Thought understand. 
[19] 



THE BUILDING OF THE ROSE 

I 

THERE is a forest in the Rose 
Where Fairies wander — 
See it yonder — 
Bend thee close and hear the rhythm 

In its leaves. 
There is a Kingdom in the wood 
Ye cannot enter, 
At whose center 
Labor artisans the stranger 
Ne'er perceives. 

Listen, listen to the murmur 

At its heart. 

Whence depart 
Fairy messengers that issue 

As perfume. 
These ambassadors are sent 
With the Rose's compliment, 
Bidding welcome to the lovers 

Of its bloom. 



[20] 



II 

There are workshops in the Rose; 

All is bustle — 

Hear the rustle 
Of the fairy wings that flutter 

To and fro ; 
There are archite6ls abroad, 

With surveyors 

And conveyors, 
And the builders and their workmen 

High and low. 

Harken, harken to the clatter 

In the Rose 

While it grows; 
What a mighty undertaking 

Is begun ! 
Built in secret round a heart; 
Then its mystic petals part — 
And the Fairies cry in wonder: 

// is done / 



[21] 



PHANTASMAL NIGHT 

COME, greet with me the arriving stars of 
night — 
Pale lucent pilgrims threading silently 
The boundless environs of space. The sea 
Far-easting lies bedimmed with their faint light, 
All tossed and broken, ere to regal height 
They rise. O speak, supernal melody 
Of motions, leadest thou on to destiny 
The man, the state, the star, the infinite ? 

The east fulfils the promise of the west; 
Deep-hooded spirits at the pyre of day 
Invoke the morrow, and the interway 
Is Night, Phantasmal Night, whose rich bequest 
Of immemorial pasts — wan-winged array — 
Sweeps ever mutely onward without rest. 



[22] 



TO MY SHADOW 

WHY, Shadow, dost thou follow me ? 
Thou substance immaterial. 
Thou'rt but a feeble silhouette — 
A dreary follower — and yet 
Methinks when sun and stars be set 
'Twill end thy life ethereal. 

Thou art, indeed, a friend to youth — 
To mark its grace and sprightliness; 

But art thou, too, a friend to age ? 

Is't kind to tell the bended sage 

He fingers near the closing page 
In angular unsightliness ? 



[23] 



MEMORIAL 

WE carried her feet-foremost from the house, 
A thing of marble carved in woman's 
mould — 
And wondered that a benison so frail 
Had been the hope strong hearts had builded on. 
So still the face, so steadfast in its peace, 
The wonder was that we did pity her: 
Perhaps it was that in our bursts of grief 
Lurked more of selfish pity for ourselves. 

At last was stilled her personality — 

Sweet, glorious spirit — while from the arch of 

home 
Was gone the tie-stone, and the buttresses 
Stood trembling in the ruin that remained. 
What wondrous sculptor wields death's 

instruments, 
To make of flesh, instind with ruddy life. 
Beauty so strange to live henceforth in stone! 
Thus tempted by the sight one surely thinks 
Some mighty craftsman kneads his clay in life — 
For life is but the shaping of the clay — 
Which, when 'tis modeled to the craftsman's eye. 
Is deftly touched with that which we call death 
And made immortal that the gods may see. 

[24] 



I AM THE PRESENT 

I AM the Present! 
I plan the deeds that future men shall do ; 
Who sows a thought lives in those deeds forever. 

The Present is the father of all time; 

I beget, and the future brings forth. 

To many I am an Effect — 

But to the wise a Cause. 

The many stand with faces to the past 

Drunk with the thought of ages that are dead ; 

These are the burden of the wise. 

The few are wise; 

They rectify the Errors of the many, 

And drag the lumbering Chariots of the World. 

To-morrow's but To-day solidified — 

Look ye well to the mixing; 

What fluid does the Old pour into the moulds 

of the New ? 
That which the many receive the same do they 

pour forth, 
But the wise clarify, 
And the wise are the few. 

[25] 



Who are the founders that mix the masterpieces 

of the future ? 
They whom the many know not. 
Who are the idols of the World's Hour? 
They who weave garlands for Empty Pleasure, 

and reanimate the specters of the past. 
Where does the World Hve ? 
Upon the skull-heaps of generations that are 

gone. 
Where does it wander ? 

Through the charnel-houses of ancient thought. 
What does it love ? 
To revel in its own decay. 
Oh, when shall come the Sanitation of its 

Thought ? 
When, O Wisdom, shall the many crowd the 

Prow of the Present 
And v/atch with yearning for the Revelations 

yet to come ? 

I am the Present! 

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil 

prospers; 
In me is its trunk; 

Its roots are in the dunghills of the past, 
[26] 



And the good thereof is its food. 

Out of the old is it rendering the new, 

And through me it pushes into the future. 

The many are borne aloft in its boughs, 

The few climb: 

The wise are the few. 

And they eat of its fruit; 

But the many rest in the shade of its leaves, 

And rail at the hght of the Unforeseen; 

But the blasts of Time cease not. 

And the mystery of the Tree withers and is gone, 

While the rays of the Sun glorify its depths. 

And the Shadow of Evil passes out forevermore. 



[27] 



EARTH SONG 

I AM the Earth Song: 
Out of the tangled forests, 
From prairies, valleys, hills, 
And from the fastnesses of rugged peaks. 
Is flung my chant. 

My rhythm is in the falling of waters. 

And in the flutter of a leaf upon a placid stream; 

My soul is motion, and the spirit thereof 

Is the working of progressive change. 

My music is not to be written. 

Nor is its meter to be caught and chained. 

I am of the choir of things. 

And to no single ear is my fulness audible. 



[28] 



WILDROSE 

WISTFUL eye of pink and yellow 
Gazing from the underbrush, 
Maiden of all wayside blossoms, 
Conjured from the dawn's first flush; 
Nodding gently in the breezes, 
Peeping at the smiling sun. 
Welcoming the coming stranger. 
Shyly greeting everyone. 
Coyly let thy petals nestle 
Roundabout thy golden heart, 
Fringed with leaves of freshest verdure 
Beauty lies in simple art. 
Where, indeed, another flower, 
Bred of sunshine and of shower, 
In the roadside's fragrant bower 
Fit to play thy humble part ? 



[29] 



THE WIND AND THE TREE 

I AM the Wind, 
Thou art the Tree; 
I am the Master, 
Yield thou to me. 

Thou art the Wind, 

I am the Tree ; 

Merciless Master, 

Yield I to thee. 
I am the King, 

Thou art the slave; 

When I command 

Let thy boughs wave. 

Thou art the King, 

I am the slave; 

At thy command 

Forests must wave. 
Mine is the world. 

Thine is the wood; 

Mine, to destroy — 

Thine, to make good. 

Thine is the world. 

Mine is the wood; 
Rend thou my heart — 

Time shall make good. 
[30] 



IMMORTALITY 

O GRAVE, O Grave, what treasures dost 
thou hold 
That fell from out the careless lap of Time ? 
Their voices, Death, where are the voices now 
That thrilled a stale world with their thoughts 
subhme ? 

Grave, I listen: Death, hast thou no tongue, 
No voice to speak save when thy knells are rung ? 
Histen, Death: where are they— they who sung? 

The grave speaks not — 'tis I the answer know; 
As Night's confessor, passing to and fro, 

1 hear strange whispers where these old mounds 

rise — 
And I, the Wind, am more than serpent wise. 

Why search ye here where requiems are said? 
The grave is for these only who are dead; 
Those whom ye seek are ever-living selves — 
Go, bend thine ear and listen at thy shelves! 



[31] 



THE STORM 

THE wind swept down a dusty lane, 
The roadside blossoms wondered; 
An azure sky was overhead 

Yet distant cloudbeds thundered; 
The leaves upraised their glossy palms 

And wrung them in a flutter, 
Whilst here and there a sudden gust 
Rebuked a loosened shutter. 

Long meadow-grasses rose and fell. 

The cattle sought a shelter; 
All feathered life about the farm 

Fled homeward helter-skelter. 
The bee-deserted clover-fields 

Bowed low their purple towers, 
And prophesied with nodding crests 

The likelihood of showers. 



[32] 



IN MEMORIAM 

August 14, i8p8 

A LITTLE blossom 
Scarce unfurled; 
A day of life, 

A troubling world; 
A passing breeze, 

A broken stem ; 
A drooping bud — 
A Requiem. 



[33] 



SCIENCE TO THE CHURCH 

WHAT, O ye passionless chanters of psalter, 
What of Divinity lurks round your altar 
Needed of Nature to work its design ? 

Know that your praises are sung to an essence 
Working unconsciously, having no presence. 
Needing no worship and giving no sign. 



[34] 



WEEP FOR ME NOT: I SHALL 
RISE AGAIN 

BURY me quietly under the leaves; 
Lay me at rest where the willow grieves; 
Press me close to its wandering roots; 
Weep for me not: I shall rise again. 
Come in the spring, when the budding shoots 
Burst from its boughs and its tendrils long, 
Where, at the chant of the robin's song, 

If you gaze at the leaves you shall see me then. 

Clad only in earth be this form of mine ; 
I would rise in the grass and the leafy vine, 
Living my death through each coming year — 

In no cold vault, to be buried there — 
But in blossoming things, that a loving ear 
May list to the voice of the droning bee, 
As it sips from my flowering canopy 

The essence to which I make it heir. 

Come when I burst on the morrow's spring; 
Lend no sad tears to my blossoming, 
But nestle me close to thy tender cheek — 
The river-bed of our parting tears — 
[35 1 



Where in my youth I was wont to seek 
The delicate tints of a love new-born. 
Ah, weep for me not, but cease to mourn— 
I shall bloom anew through the coming years. 



[36] 



NOVEMBER 

LOW sings the wind in the crimsoning 
branches, 
South v/ard the Sun bears the Summer away ; 
Crisp is the air at the break of the morning, 
Mellow the voices that bury the day. 
HARK! From the realms of perpetual slumber 
Boreal trumpets proclaim to the world 
A dazzling Army in arctic effulgence 
That streams from the North with its Snow-flag 
unfurled. 



[37] 



FLIGHT 

A BIRD on the wing! 
What a marvelous thing 
Is its flight towards the ambient sky: 
A sweep and a flutter, 
A feathery mutter, 
A flit — and it rises on high. 

A wingful of air 

Is the whole of its stair 

As it clambers to summits of blue; 
While the grace of its flight 
As it passes from sight, 

O Man ! is a challenge to you. 



[38] 



A CHURCHYARD 

A CHURCHYARD full of silent pasts- 
Blank pasts devoid of deeds ; 
An empty churchyard, full of death 
And weeds. 

A churchyard strewn with hollow mounds 
Gaunt mounds that seem to mark 

The hollowness of sighing for 
The dark. 

A churchyard set with spectral stones 
Deep graved with name and date — 

Grim symbolists whose meaning is: 
7oo late! 

A churchyard full of buried loves — 
Old loves long since unlearned; 

A churchyard full of nothingness 
Returned. 

A churchyard full of hidden paths— 

Of paths disused and old; 
A churchyard full of faded things, 

And cold. 

[39] 



NATURE'S LAND 

I SLEPT — and the odor of forests 
Came stealing across my dreams, 
While the voice of a far, far country, 

And the sound of its rushing streams, 
Fell sweet on my wearied senses 

And struck, with a magical hand. 
The chord of the wind in a slumbering mind 
As it journeyed to Nature's Land. 

I dreamed — and a vision of Nature 

Spread open before my view; 
It led me far from the world of men 

To another that ever is new, 
Where the depths of an ancient forest 

Held mysteries hoar and grand. 
And the wind of the past with its spectral blast 

Bade me welcome to Nature's Land. 

I gazed — and the Spirit of Forests 

Advanced with a rustling tread 
That sounded like weary seasons 

From an Age that had long been dead; 
And the form of the Spirit of Forests 

Seemed frail as a riven tree, 
And shook as a leaf in the Fall-wind's grief, 

As if burdened with misery. 
[40] 



I listened . . . the sorrows of Nature 

Burst full from the heart of the wood, 
And a sigh from the Spirit of Forests — 

Forebodings I understood; 
While the fluttering forms about me, 

Which the tremulous breezes fanned, 
Bowed low to my ear as I listened to hear 

Of the ruin of Nature's Land. 

I wept: for the pulse of the forest 

Grew still as its heart grew gray, 
While arches on bowery pillars 

Fell earthward to moulder away; 
And the wealth of its rushing waters 

Had shrunk to a whispering strand, 
For the edge of a blade in the widening glade 

Was murdering Nature's Land. 



[41] 



THE MOUNTAIN LAKE 

''nr^WAS brought from the sea, 

JL Sun-borne through the centuries. 
Purified in the lifting, enriched in the faiUng 
With soil primeval, each component sphere — 
Living in Shape Significant — hastened from the 

deeps 
And merged identity with its quiet waters. 

The west wind and its surface are old friends — 
Its whispering ripples greet the passing breeze; 
While the many facets of its dancing wave 
Snatch filmy hues of green-clad borderlands, 
Broad stripes of blue and patches of white cloud, 
To weave the carpet sunbeams tread upon. 

About its edges broods the silent wood, 
Whose shaggy boughs peer downward cease- 
lessly 
And seem to gather from its mystic depths 
The Druid essence that enshrouds old trees. 

Dull, timbered hills that split to give it birth 
In frowning silence guard its mysteries ; 
Unwearying, these, the Genii of the lake. 
Reck neither day, nor year, nor century. 
[ 42 ] 



GO TO THE WIND 

HARK to the wind in the withered trees — 
Why does it sigh ? 
Though the past be dead and the present sleeps; 
Though the spedral mist through the valley 

creeps, 
And the ashen sky of winter weeps — 
Yet, Spring is nigh. 

Go to the wind in the troubled trees, 

And bid it cease: 
Say that the past indeed is dead. 
But the sleeping Earth and the Spring shall wed. 
And the weeping skies shall laugh instead — 

Then wish it peace. 



[43] 



AN EXTRAORDINARY BEE 

IN the Spring-time woke a drowsy Bee — 
Lazily, so lazily — 
And spread his new-glossed wings to see 
The budding World's gay canopy — 

Lazily — 

So lazily. 
He gathered sweets from field and tree, 
From cherry, and anemone. 
And daffodil, complacently — 

And lazily — 

So lazily. 

The Summer found him on the lea 
Mid Nature's full prosperity — 
A connoisseur of high degree, 
Quaffing his vintage warily, 

And daintily — 

And lazily. 
No hard pressed laborer was he — 
This extra-ordinary Bee, 
Who laughed at time and industry. 
And buzzed his wings at penury — 

Chill penury — 
Dread penury. 
[44] 



There came a wintry breath from sea — 
O, ho! how cold and shivery! 
Then spake this gentlemanly Bee: 
"A short and jolly life," quoth he: 
**The World has done quite well by me; 
I'm going now, thanks, awfully — 

Thanks, awfully 



[45] 



A LETTER 

A LETTER is on the sea — 
A message of love 
Penned by a tender hand 
For me — 

For me ! 

Words that have burned of old, 
Simple, sweet and bold — 
When has a treasure ship 
Come better laden ! 

Truth shot from Love's clear eye 
Shackled in terms, to sigh 
And strain at bonds that bind 
Words to a passion. 

Tell, dear, the fancies rare 
Wrought in thy heart, and tear 
Never a word of love 
Out of its setting. 

Let every thought appear 
Fresh as the atmosphere 
When in June's loving-time 
Nature is throbbing. 

[46] 



All thoughts of love are sweet; 
Speak, then, for life is fleet; 
Think not to be discreet — 
That is not loving. 

Throw wide the Heart's great door; 
Give of its wondrous store 
All that it holds, and more: 
This, dear, is loving! 



[47] 



THE MYSTERIES 

IVhat is birth ? 
Old Nature's invitation 
To enter life and share its tribulation. 

IVhat is Life ? 
To gratify desire 

And mourn the ashes of its dying fire. 

What is Death ? 
A fading of illusion ; 

Imagined life but drawn to a conclusion. 

IVhat is Thought ? 
A flickering impression 
Of what occurs; impermanent possession. 

IVhat is Will? 
Unsatisfied combining 
Of pole with pole, a ceaseless reassigning. 

What am I ? 
A passing culmination 
Of active forces working transformation. 



[48] 



WORRY 

WORRY, you're no friend of mine - 
I care not for your frown ; 
So leave your scourge and torturing rack; 

And doff your cheerless gown, 
And follow me to yonder wood 

Where living joys are rife. 
And I will show you greater sport 
Than making hell of life. 



49 



UNFATHOMED 

THERE are depths in the heart 
Which no plummet can sound, 
Like caves of the sea 

Where the day never glows ; 
There are thoughts in the brain 

Which forever lie bound, 
Like mines of rich treasure 
The world never knows. 



[50] 



THE PASSING OF KINGS 

ASIDE! Aside! Monarchic Powers, 
For men are planning mighty hours- 
Yea, mighty men, and bold in thought, 
Sturdy of will and fearing nought. 
Are binding chains about your thrones 
To drag them at their chariots! 

Aside ! Aside ! ye cannot stay 

Nor swerve their purpose, nor dismay: 

They move, and rend, and permeate 

Your staunchest citadels of state; 

And stride undaunted towards their goal 

Of absolute supremacy ! 

Combine, construd, and train your force; 
Your spent loins gird with all resource, 
And stand as best you may to bar 
The Hour. — In vain ! with scarce a jar 
They sweep your monarchies to earth 
And fashion a Democracy ! 



[51] 



LUCK 

WOULD you have luck, my friend? 
I'll tell you how: 
See yonder furrow breaking to the plow, 
And one behind it, steaming in his sweat — 
Brow-bent, unlovely spedacle; and yet 
'Tis Work, Luck's Master, whom you there be- 
hold: 
Go, lend a hand; and all the world is gold! 



[52] 



HERMITAGE 

WHY is the mountain solitude bereft 
Of all save me ? No less than other men 
Love I the valley and its peaceful life — 
Its trees, its streams, its meadows and their flocks ; 
And every light that glimmers through the night, 
From cabin, manse or teeming settlement. 
Bears out to me its message of good cheer. 
Yet to the silent wilderness I go 
And wonder that no man has builded there. 



C53l 



GLORY 

THREE hundred men went marching by- 
And every man stood six feet high, 
While all strode forth, prepared to die — 
To conquer a far-off country. 

One break of day, at bugle's sound, 
Three hundred men their duty found, 
And next day six feet under ground 

They slept in that far-off country. 

Three hundred homes had tears to shed; 
A mourning nation bowed its head — 
Then other mouths consumed the bread 

Of the dead in that far-off country. 

Three hundred shades came marching back 
With belt and gun and shoulder-pack; 
But the world knew not — alas! alack! — 
Who died in that far-off country. 



[54] 



YOUTH 

MY eyes are young, 
And the skies are blue; 
My thought is fresh, 

And the world is new; 
My friends are warm, 

And their hearts are true — 
Oh, there's ne'er an end to summer! 

The forests sing, 

All roads are gay; 
The winds with blossoms 

Strew my way. 
And each journey's end 

Brings a merrier day — 
For I'm Youth ! the newest comer. 



L.ofO.? 



[55] 



THE REASON 

THESE bounds to Sense are barriers to my 
thought — 
Would I could shatter them ! and be henceforth 
A wholly rounded thing — a spheral mind 
On which the Universe should make impress 
Exact, proportionate; — then should I grasp 
What we of the unfound way call Infinite. 

Whereas, alas, these few weak glimmerings 
That flash their meanings to my consciousness 
Are such poor fragments of totality 
I gather scarce five units of the sum. 



[56] 



'TIS ONLY DEATH 

TIS only Death — fear not the final slumber; 
The aftermath is neither joy nor pain — 
For, gently drifting from life's fretful moments, 
We enter sleep unconscious of our gain. 

Dread not the pressure of Death's mystic needle: 
One prick, a sigh, and waking is undone; 

Old hopes and fears are left upon the pillow. 
While nought beyond can rouse the wearied 
one. 



[57] 



STARS 

WHEN, having grasped the royal truth of 
stars — 
Their sameness, though so vastly separate — 
All previous wonders of my life grew one, 
And in me rose the seething wish to know 
The mighty power that thrust them all apart! 



[58] 



FIT AND UNFIT 

OH, the horror of this life; 
Its degrading daily strife — 
And its grief. 

Oh, the burden of our need: 
Loved long-waiting mouths to feed, 
While in blood the price we pay 
For the food we bear away 
From the market-place of Hell, 
Whence we snatch it. 

Struggle, struggle! Though it pain, 
We must struggle yet again. 
And again ! 

For the food is to the Strong — 
To the getter, right or wrong. 
He and his gain what they seek, 
While the weak — ah, the weak I — 
But perpetuate their sorrow, 
Breeding victims for the morrow 
Who must labor for the Strong, 
Right or wrong. 



[59] 



THE WESTERN LAND 

I LOVE the shores of our Western Land — 
Its cliffs in air, and its wreck-fed strand, 
And the shattered rocks that pierce its sea. 
Like daggers adrift, are dear to me ! 

Like cruel fangs to the man of fear 
Are the teeth of its reefs when he ventures near. 
Ahoy ! we shout to the steady hand: 
There 's work for you in this rugged land! 

But to you who pale and you who shrink, 

Who fear to gaze from the dizzy brink. 

Who look behind, who dread to die, 

Who view the world with a timid eye: 

Bear off ! Bear off ! ye trembling things, 

Or your blood shall be wine at our banquetings ! 



[60] 



A SUMMER'S DAY IDYL 

THE wind on the hillside's tossing grain 
Makes of my field a sea, 
And over it come great luminous ships 

Out of the west to me; 
Come out of the west and into the east 
With their bellying cloud-sails gleaming; 
And each galleon's hold 
Bears a tale untold 
As I lie in the meadow dreaming. 



[6i] 



THE CLOSING HOUR 

ANOTHER year has sped away, 
Full of work and full of play — 
Stay ! 
Ere 1 toss the ball again, 
Which shall be the workingmen ? 
They who turned the wheel before ? 
They who gathered in the store ? 
Or they who laughed and lounged and 

quaffed. 
And chose to live sleek gentlemen ? 

Ha! we each shall have a part — 
Some a carriage, some a cart ; 
They shall work who used to shirk; 
And thus we '11 strike a balance, 

So — 

Toss the hall again! 



[62] 



CONTENTS 

Awakening 9 

The Building of the Rose . . . .20 

A Churchyard 39 

The Closing Hour 62 

The Cloud Child 15 

' Tis Only Death 57 

Earth Song 28 

Enough 10 

An Extraordinary Bee . . . -44 

Fit and Unfit 39 

Flight 38 

The Forge . . . . . . .16 

Glory 54 

Go to the Wind 43 

Hermitage 53 

/ am the Present . . . . .25 

Immortality 31 

The Joys of a Summer Morning . . - 13 

Leaves 11 

A Letter 46 

Life and Death 14 

Luck 52 

Memorial 24 

[63] 



In Memoriam 33 

The Mountain Lake 42 

The Mysteries 48 

Nature's Land 40 

November 37 

The Passing of Kings . . . .51 

Phantasmal Night 22 

The Reason 56 

Science to the Church 34 

To My Shadow .2} 

Stars 58 

The Storm ^2 

A Summer's Day Idyl , . . .61 

A Tramp 7 

Unfathomed 50 

Weep for Me Not: I Shall Rise Again . 35 

The Western Land 60 

Whither 12 

Wildrose 29 

The Wind and the Tree . . . .30 

Worry ....... 49 

Youth ....... 55 



[64] 



^^^ 21 1903 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

018 360 841 1 ^ 




